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| Satellite ofKCWH-LD,Lincoln, Nebraska | |
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| City | Hastings, Nebraska |
| Channels | |
| Branding | The CW Nebraska |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| KCWH-LD,KNPL-LD,KOLN–KGIN,KSNB-TV | |
| History | |
First air date | January 1, 1956 (69 years ago) (1956-01-01) |
Former call signs | KHAS-TV (1956–2014) |
Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | "Nebraska, Hastings, Lincoln" |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 48003 |
| ERP | 45kW |
| HAAT | 217 m (712 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 40°38′56″N98°23′2″W / 40.64889°N 98.38389°W /40.64889; -98.38389 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
KNHL (channel 5) is atelevision station licensed toHastings, Nebraska, United States, affiliated withThe CW Plus. It is a full-powersatellite ofLincoln-basedKCWH-LD (channel 18) which is owned byGray Media. As KHAS-TV, it formerly served as theNBC affiliate for the western side of the Lincoln–Hastings–Kearneymarket. KNHL is asister station to NBC affiliateKSNB-TV (channel 4) inYork andCBS affiliatesKOLN/KGIN (channels 10 and 11) in Lincoln andGrand Island. KNHL's transmitter is located onUS 281 north of Hastings.
In 2014, Gray acquiredHoak Media; as it already owned the three aforementioned stations (KOLN/KGIN and KSNB) in the same market, it planned to sell KHAS to the shell company Excalibur Broadcasting and operate KHAS under ashared services agreement (SSA). As a result of growing FCC scrutiny towards "virtual duopolies", Gray instead let KHAS fallsilent on June 13, 2014, and its programming and news operation were relocated to KSNB-TV, pending a sale of KHAS-TV to aminority owned broadcaster, Legacy Broadcasting. In September 2018, Gray agreed to purchase KNHL.
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion with: further information on KHAS-TV's station history. You can help byadding to it.(September 2011) |
KNHL was founded in 1956 as KHAS-TV by a group of local investors headed byFred A. Seaton, publisher of theHastings Tribune newspaper andSecretary of the Interior during theEisenhower Administration.[2] It took its calls fromKHAS radio, which Seaton had founded in 1940. In 1967, it was one of the first stations in the area to acquire color broadcasting equipment.
Seaton died in 1974. His family held on to channel 5 until 1997, when it was sold to Dick Shively and Ulysses Carlini Sr., owners of North Platte TV stationsKNOP-TV andK11TW, operating the three stations under the name Greater Nebraska Television. In 2005, Greater Nebraska Television sold the stations toHoak Media.[3]
The station's studio was located north of Hastings on US 281. The transmitter tower was located next to the studio. KHAS-TV was formerly rebroadcast ontranslator station K14IY inHoldrege; this translator went dark in 2009. KHAS-TV was later also carried on K02HJ inOrd and K35AL analog channel 35 inLexington, Nebraska.[4] All three translators broadcast ananalog signal. K35AL formerly carried programming from sister stationKNOP-TV but Lexington is in the Lincoln–Hastings–Kearney market while North Platte is a separate market. Both local and national programming on KHAS was carried in high definition.
Starting around 2004, KHAS began branding itself as a full-market NBC station. Previously,Omaha'sWOWT-TV had claimed the capital as part of its primary coverage area, inheriting that status when it regained the NBC affiliation fromKMTV-TV in 1985. For the next two decades, KHAS-TV identified as "Hastings/Kearney/Grand Island/Lincoln" on-air and on its Website. While WOWT was still carried on Lincoln cable systems, KHAS-TV was picked up on the LincolnDirecTV andDish Network feeds as the local NBC station, boosting its potential audience to over 700,000 people across Nebraska andKansas.
In June 2012, KHAS and other Hoak-owned stations were pulled fromDish Network after they failed to renew a carriage agreement. The refusal to renew reportedly surrounds Dish Network's "Hopper"digital video recorder and its controversial commercial-skipping featureAutoHop—which has also led to complaints from the major U.S. television networks.[5][6]
On November 20, 2013,Gray Television announced it would purchase Hoak Media in a $335 million deal.[7] As Gray already ownedKOLN/KGIN, KHAS was to be sold to Excalibur Broadcasting and operated by Gray under alocal marketing agreement.[8] However, in the wake of heightened FCC scrutiny of local marketing agreements, on June 11, 2014, KHAS-TV announced it would leave the air at midnight on June 13. Its NBC affiliation, along with its news department and syndicated programming, would be moved toKSNB-TV and the digital subcarriers of KOLN and KGIN.[9] KHAS would then be sold off to minority interests, which under this arrangement would allow the station to return to the air on the conditions that the new owner operate the station independently (under minority, female and/or non-profit ownership) and not make any partnerships or sharing arrangements with other broadcasters.[10] KSNB-TV still operates from KHAS-TV's former studio.
On August 27, 2014, Gray announced that it would sell KHAS-TV along withKAQY,KNDX, and KXND to Legacy Broadcasting, a new broadcasting company controlled by Sherry Nelson and daughter Sara Jane Ingram.[11] On December 1, 2014, the call letters became KNHL.[12] The sale was completed on December 15.[13] Legacy returned KNHL to the air June 6, 2015[14] as an affiliate of theSonLife Broadcasting Network.[15]
On May 21, 2018, Gray agreed to acquire KNHL from Legacy Broadcasting for $475,000; in filing for FCC approval of the purchase in September 2018, Gray proposed to operate the station as a satellite of KSNB-TV. In connection with the sale, Gray began leasing KNHL's third digital subchannel on September 1, 2018, to simulcastKCWH-LD,[16] Gray's Lincoln-basedCW affiliate (throughThe CW Plus); the affiliation formally launched on October 1.[17][18] The sale of the station was approved on February 12, 2019.[19][20][21] The sale was completed on March 1,[22] reuniting KNHL with many of its former Hoak Media sisters. Upon completion of the sale, KNHL was converted into a satellite station of KSNB-DT1, KSNB-DT2, and KSNB-DT3 (on 5.2, 5.1, and 5.4, respectively) and KCWH-LD1 (on 5.3). Through the utilization of updatedmultiplexer equipment, NBC and CW+ programming was aired in high definition on 5.2 and 5.3, respectively (although in720p for both HD feeds; the KSNB-DT1 simulcast is downconverted from the native1080i resolution of the NBC network), with MyNetworkTV and MeTV programming on 5.1 and Ion Television programming on 5.4 airing in 16:9standard definition.
| This sectionneeds expansion with: further information on the history of KHAS-TV news operation. You can help byadding to it.(September 2011) |
KHAS-TV produced 16 hours of local news per week, with 3 hours each weekday and 30 minutes on Saturday and Sunday. Newscasts aired weekdays at 6 and 11:30 a.m., weeknights at 5 and 6 p.m., and seven nights a week at 10 p.m.
Upon the station going dark on June 13, 2014, the entire news operation moved to KSNB-TV.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.1 | 720p | 16:9 | CW-HD | The CW Nebraska (KCWH-LD) |
| 5.2 | 480i | START | Start TV | |
| 5.3 | CourtTV | Court TV | ||
| 5.4 | ION TV | Ion Television (KSNB-DT3) | ||
| 5.5 | Oxygen | Oxygen | ||
| 5.6 | OUT | Outlaw |
In September 2005, KHAS-TV began operatingNBC Weather Plus (known as "News 5 Weather Plus") on digital subchannel 5.2 and until 2008, it was the only Hoak Media-owned NBC affiliate to carry the network when it was dropped due toNBCUniversal's purchase ofThe Weather Channel. In September 2010, KHAS-TV digital subchannel 5.2 switched from a standard-definition simulcast toThis TV. It identified locally as "This Nebraska". On November 1, 2013, KHAS replaced This TV with Cozi TV.[24]
KNHL (as KHAS-TV) shut down its analog signal, overVHF channel 5, on December 1, 2008. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transitionUHF channel 21 to VHF channel 5.[25][26] Due to Nebraska's cold winter weather, the station elected to make the transition early rather than on the national February 17, 2009, analog shutoff date.[27] The digital signal on channel 5 is one of only 48 full-power stations in the United States to broadcast digitally using alow-VHF/Band I channel.[28]
In the 4th Qtr of 2013 we also became a COZI TV affiliate. On November 1st 2013 we switched from THIS TV to COZI TV on our 5.2 digital channel.
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofNebraska | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Nebraska | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent |
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| PBS |
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| Religious | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
